Alejandro Garnacho needs his Aston Villa moment as crucial Unai Emery period begins

* This was written before Garnacho's goal in Villa's 3-1 friendly win against Sevilla, feel like it may have pre emoted his goal!

Alejandro Garnacho’s Aston Villa career has barely started, yet already there is a sense that the next few weeks could go a long way towards determining whether it ever really gets going.

The three-week break from Premier League football gives Unai Emery something he rarely gets during the season: uninterrupted time on the training pitch with a significant number of his players. Villa do have players away on international duty, but perhaps not as many as you would ordinarily expect, and that leaves Garnacho among those with an opportunity to put himself directly in front of the manager every day.

He has at least started this period positively, scoring the only goal in a 1-0 behind-closed-doors victory against Southampton, while Villa’s friendly against Sevilla offers another opportunity to build some momentum. We cannot read too much into games we either cannot see or which carry no competitive consequence, but for a player who has barely had any sustained football since arriving at Villa, simply getting minutes and making an impact has to be useful.

Daily Mail Midlands reporter Tom Collomosse joined me on The 1874 Podcast to discuss Garnacho’s situation and, while there are obvious comparisons being made with Harvey Elliott after what happened last season, Tom believes it is still too early to assume Villa are heading towards the same outcome.

“The signs weren’t good for him, were they, let’s be honest, before the break?” Collomosse said. “Not coming on at Coventry when that’s the perfect game. We asked Emery afterwards, ‘What does he need to do to get into this side?’ Work, train and work, so you can interpret what you like from that.”

Garnacho was subsequently included in the squad for the victory at Tottenham, although Collomosse questioned whether that would necessarily have happened had Alysson been available. Emery has shown greater trust in players who have spent longer working within his system, and that is something we have seen repeatedly during his time at Villa.

That is why these next few weeks are interesting.

One of the biggest misconceptions around Emery is that every player signed for significant money should immediately walk into his team. That simply has not been how he has operated. Youri Tielemans took a long time to become the player Emery wanted him to be, while others have been introduced gradually as they learn exactly what is expected of them. There have been exceptions, Morgan Rogers being the most obvious, but even that felt like Emery seeing a player almost immediately who had everything he wanted.

Collomosse believes Emi Buendía is perhaps a more relevant example for Garnacho.

“Emery doesn’t totally give up on players,” he said. “Look at Emi Buendía. I think that’s a great example for Garnacho to follow.

“The summer of 2025, I know that if Birmingham had come for him then, he’d have gone. He’d have gone to Birmingham, gone to the Championship. Look where he is now, scoring a winner in the Europa League final, probably a bit unlucky not to be in the last Argentina squad.”

That is worth remembering because the discussion around Garnacho can sometimes drift towards the idea that Villa have somehow inherited a player who was never particularly good in the first place.

The numbers suggest otherwise.

As Collomosse pointed out, Garnacho produced 20 goals and 17 assists across two seasons at Manchester United while still in his late teens and early twenties, and he has already accumulated an enormous amount of senior football for a 22-year-old, as well as being capped by Argentina.

“This isn’t some dud,” Collomosse said. “This isn’t some kind of overhyped kid who was maybe never really any good anyway. This is a serious player. It’s just really whether Emery can unlock that again in him, or perhaps whether he is in a place in himself, in his life, in his career for it to be unlocked.”

There is another part of Garnacho’s move to Villa which I think has perhaps been overlooked. He could have taken an easier route. He could have left England, removed himself from the Premier League spotlight and attempted to rebuild somewhere with considerably less attention on him. Instead, he stayed in England and joined a club where the demands from the manager are enormous.

There has to be something inside the player that wants to prove people wrong.

Collomosse offered an important caveat to that because the wider circumstances of the deal cannot be ignored. Morgan Rogers joined Chelsea shortly before Garnacho moved in the opposite direction and, while the two transactions may technically have been separate, it would be naive not to at least question the wider context in which the deal happened.

That also feeds into the question which has followed Garnacho almost from the moment he arrived: exactly how much did Emery want this particular player?

There is evidence that Villa and Emery had liked Garnacho previously, rather than this being an opportunistic move made purely because of the Rogers deal, but Collomosse offered an interesting insight into Emery and recruitment.

“There’s almost kind of two Unai Emerys,” he explained. “There’s the Unai Emery that is the football side of it, the stuff on the training ground, the preparation for matches, the plan for the match, the debriefs. We know exactly how he processes all of these things.

“It’s a bit different with transfers. I think he’s probably quite a hard boss to work for because sometimes it’s, ‘I want a left winger, a left-footed left winger who can go on the outside. No, I want a right-footed left winger. No, I want a left-footed right winger.’ I think that changes quite a lot across a window.”

That does not mean Emery did not want Garnacho, but it does help explain why signing a player and immediately having a defined role for him are not necessarily the same thing.

The tactical side of this is probably the part I find most interesting.

For Garnacho to play in what you would consider his natural position on the left, Villa have to change more than one player. Emery has not really used an orthodox winger on that side in this version of his team. Putting Garnacho there affects what the left-back does, what the central midfielder on that side does, how the number ten operates and potentially even how the striker moves.

Football is always more complicated than it looks from the outside and, with Emery, it can feel 100 times more complicated.

You are effectively asking Villa to flip a significant part of their attacking structure to accommodate one player at a time when there has already been huge upheaval within the team. It probably is not a coincidence that Emery initially leaned on the reliability of people who understood his methods, with Buendía and John McGinn prominent and even younger players who had spent longer within the environment sometimes receiving opportunities before the new arrivals.

Collomosse agreed that this was a significant factor, but suggested it inevitably brings the recruitment question back into focus.

“You’ve articulated what’s right about Emery’s style,” he said. “And so then you ask yourself, him knowing all this, has he asked for Garnacho?”

The encouraging thing is that Garnacho now has an unusual opportunity to learn without the relentless cycle of match, recovery and preparation which usually dominates the season.

Collomosse recalled Emery discussing Eman Kospo Manzambi before the international break and almost sounding frustrated that, just as the player was beginning to absorb Villa’s methods, he was going away to work within a completely different system with Switzerland.

Garnacho does not have that interruption.

If he is listening in meetings, understanding what Emery wants and then transferring those instructions onto the training pitch, these weeks can be hugely valuable. Villa then have seven games between October 10 and the end of the month, across three competitions, and it is difficult to believe there will not be some opportunity for him within that schedule.

It might initially be ten minutes from the bench. It might be a cup start. Injuries or fatigue after international duty could alter the picture completely. Whatever form it takes, he needs something he can grab hold of.

There also appears to be a misconception around Garnacho’s personality which perhaps comes from the way his Manchester United career ended. Collomosse says the impression he has received is very different from the flashy or disruptive character some might imagine.

“What I hear about him, because of everything that happened at Man United, there’s this perception that he’s disruptive and he’s flashy,” he said. “He’s just quite shy, quiet, maybe not necessarily the sort of personality who’s going to push himself forward.”

That makes Villa’s remaining senior core important.

John McGinn and Tyrone Mings have taken on even greater responsibility following the summer rebuild and are effectively Emery’s lieutenants within the squad, helping new arrivals understand positioning, defensive responsibilities and what is expected from an Aston Villa player.

There are probably no better examples for Garnacho to follow. Both were at Villa in the Championship, both could easily have been viewed as players Emery might eventually move beyond and yet both have remained hugely influential.

As Collomosse put it: “You couldn’t want two better emblems of what can be achieved under Emery if you do it the right way.”

The comparison with Elliott will continue until Garnacho starts playing regularly, particularly because his loan also contains a conditional obligation to buy. The exact trigger has deliberately remained unclear, although Collomosse understands it to require considerably more than the ten appearances which would have triggered Villa’s obligation on Elliott.

“I think it’s more,” he said. “I don’t know what it is. They’re being very careful to keep it quiet because I think they were put in a very awkward spot when the fact that it was ten games with Elliott got out.

“Everyone could see it was like a countdown clock. He plays and plays, and you knew when he got to nine and he’s not going to play again, that’s it. So I think it’s more with Garnacho and it might even be slightly more complex.”

It is another reason why every Garnacho team selection should not automatically be viewed through the prism of the obligation.

Other summer signings have also been introduced gradually. Some have played because injuries created an opening. Others have had to wait. Garnacho is not yet so far removed from the rest of Villa’s recruitment that we can definitively say Emery has decided against him.

The problem is what happens next.

Tottenham felt like the first real glimpse of what the rebuilt Villa might eventually become. There was more pace, more directness and suddenly you could start to envisage how players such as Manzambi, Ibrahim Mbaye and Nicolas Jackson might combine within a new Emery team.

Collomosse described the early weeks of the campaign as almost “Villa 0.5” rather than Villa 2.0, because so much of the side still resembled the old team simply minus the players who had departed. Spurs was different. For the first time you could see elements of whatever comes next.

My concern for Garnacho is that, when I picture that team developing from Villa 0.5 towards 1.25, 1.5 and eventually Villa 2.0, I struggle to put him into the picture.

That does not mean he cannot change it.

Garnacho has already shown what he can do at his best. Collomosse recalled watching him torment Matty Cash during Chelsea’s victory at Villa Park last season, producing the type of performance which demonstrated the talent is unquestionably there.

Villa now have to find out whether Emery can access it consistently.

There is even the possibility that the situation never develops and the loan ends early, although that would require agreement between the clubs and somewhere else for Garnacho to go. Equally, he could produce something over the coming weeks which completely changes the conversation.

That is why I keep coming back to the idea that Garnacho simply needs a moment.

It could come against Sevilla. It could be ten minutes in the first game after the break. It could arrive in the Carabao Cup or two months from now. He needs one contribution, one performance or one opportunity which gives Emery a reason to use him again.

Once that happens, there is something to build from.

If it never does, Villa and Garnacho could remain in the holding pattern they are currently in until eventually the decision is effectively made for them. There is enough evidence from Emery’s time at Villa to know that players can change his mind, however, and enough evidence from Garnacho’s career to know that there is a serious footballer there.

For the first time since he arrived, he now has a prolonged period in which he can work directly with Emery without Premier League matches constantly getting in the way.

What he does with it could determine whether Alejandro Garnacho eventually becomes an Aston Villa player or merely someone who briefly passed through.